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crisis, wrote in his diary: 'A fine day: wrote couplets on fans.'
Lin's letter drafted to Queen Victoria was a noble and convincing message. In it he points out that opium is forbidden in England and therefore the English know its harmful effects. 'As long as you do not take it yourselves but continue to make it and tempt the people of China to buy it, you will be showing yourselves careful of your own lives but careless of the lives of other people....such conduct is repugnant to human feeling and at variance with the Way of Heaven.' He further writes: 'Rather than waste your efforts on a hopeless endeavour, would it not be better to devise some other form of trade?' (author's italics); surely a hint that trade relations without opium could perhaps be established. Unfortunately the letter was never sent. One can only speculate what might have happened if the young Queen, barely two years on the throne, had received this letter.
Lin reminded the foreign traders that they were allowed to trade as a favour, because China was completely self-sufficient, while the foreigners, especially the British, could not live without tea and rhubarb. The belief was widely held in China that the English would die of constipation if they were deprived of rhubarb.' Lin later modified his statement omitting rhubarb but leaving tea as an absolute necessity' (author's italics). The existing opium stocks in the factories were surrendered and destroyed (in salt and lime; not burned as sometimes stated), and for a while it seemed as if Commissioner Lin might succeed in his task, but the confrontation led to an armed conflict, known as the First Opium War (1839-1842), in which the Chinese with their antiquated methods of warfare and ineffective weapons were defeated on land and at sea. It was ‘A conflict between ignorant weakness and conscious strength. It ended in the Treaty of Nanjing (Nanking), by which terms China opened to foreigners the five ports of Guangzhou (Canton), Xiamen (Amoy), Fuzhou (Foochow), Ningbo (Ningpo), and Shanghai as Treaty Ports, where they might reside and trade; an indemnity of 21 million dollars was exacted, and the Island of Hong Kong was ceded in perpetuity to Britain. For China the war was a disaster and humiliation, the last vestiges of which were erased only a short time ago when Hong Kong was returned, in 1997, to its homeland. By contrast, Queen Victoria referred to the war in flippant tones. Writing to her uncle, the King of Belgium, in 1841, she states:- 'The Chinese business vexes us much, and Palmerston is deeply mortified at it. All
11
crisis, wrote in his diary: 'A fine day: wrote couplets on fans.'
Lin's letter drafted to Queen Victoria was a noble and convincing message. In it he points out that opium is forbidden in England and therefore the English know its harmful effects. 'As long as you do not take it yourselves but continue to make it and tempt the people of China to buy it, you will be showing yourselves careful of your own lives but careless of the lives of other people....such conduct is repugnant to human feeling and at variance with the Way of Heaven.' He further writes: 'Rather than waste your efforts on a hopeless endeavour, would it not be better to devise some other form of trade?' (author's italics); surely a hint that trade relations without opium could perhaps be established. Unfortunately the letter was never sent. One can only speculate what might have happened if the young Queen, barely two years on the throne, had received this letter.
Lin reminded the foreign traders that they were allowed to trade as a favour, because China was completely self-sufficient, while the foreigners, especially the British, could not live without tea and rhubarb. The belief was widely held in China that the English would die of constipation if they were deprived of rhubarb." Lin later modified his statement omitting rhubarb but leaving tea as an absolute necessity' (author's italics). The existing opium stocks in the factories were surrendered and destroyed (in salt and lime; not burned as sometimes stated), and for a while it seemed as if Commissioner Lin might succeed in his task, but the confrontation led to an armed conflict, known as the First Opium War (1839-1842), in which the Chinese with their antiquated methods of warfare and ineffective weapons were defeated on land and at sea. It was ‘A conflict between ignorant weakness and conscious strength. It ended in the Treaty of Nanjing (Nanking), by which terms China opened to foreigners the five ports of Guangzhou (Canton), Xiamen (Amoy), Fuzhou (Foochow), Ningbo (Ningpo), and Shanghai as Treaty Ports, where they might reside and trade; an indemnity of 21 million dollars was exacted, and the Island of Hong Kong was ceded in perpetuity to Britain. For China the war was a disaster and humiliation, the last vestiges of which were erased only a short time ago when Hong Kong was returned, in 1997, to its homeland. By contrast, Queen Victoria referred to the war in flippant tones. Writing to her uncle, the King of Belgium, in 1841, she states:- 'The Chinese business vexes us much, and Palmerston is deeply mortified at it. All
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